Once a book is in the public domain, anyone can adapt it, change it and sell the result without asking anyone. That is why Dracula, Frankenstein and Sherlock Holmes come back every year. The catch is that "public domain" is decided country by country, and a famous story usually comes wrapped in things that are still owned: a studio's character design, a recent translation, a musical's songs, a trademark, an actor's face.
This guide explains where the line runs and what changes when the adaptation is made with AI. For ready-checked works, open the public domain story library: each work has its status by country, its traps and a link to a legal source for the text. Nothing here is legal advice. It is general information with its sources, so that a lawyer's check on a commercial project is short.
The short answer
| You want to | Public domain story | Later version of it (film, musical, new translation) |
|---|---|---|
| Adapt the plot and the characters | Yes | Only what came from the original |
| Change the ending, the era, the genre | Yes | Not by copying the later version's changes |
| Sell, monetise, enter festivals | Yes | Only your own work |
| Copy designs, music, dialogue added later | Not applicable | No, unless that version is free too |
| Use the title | Usually, as long as it creates no confusion with another work | Check trademark registers for brands and goods |
When a work enters the public domain
Two clocks run, and a work must be free under the clock of every country where you release it.
| Where | Rule | What it means in 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| United States | Works published from 1929 to 1977 are protected for 95 years from publication | Everything first published in 1930 or earlier is free. Works of 1931 become free on 1 January 2027 |
| European Union | 70 years after the death of the author, counted from 1 January of the following year. Spain keeps 80 years for authors who died before 7 December 1987 | Authors who died in 1955 or earlier are free (in Spain, 1945 or earlier). Authors who died in 1956 become free on 1 January 2027 |
| United Kingdom | Same as the EU: 70 years from the end of the year of death | Same dates as the EU |
| Elsewhere | From 50 to 100 years after death, depending on the country | Check the law of the country where you release |
The gap between the two clocks is where most mistakes happen. A book published in 1926 by an author who died in 1956 is free in the United States and still protected in Europe. A film or a series released worldwide has to respect the longer of the two.
In the US, Duke University's Center for the Study of the Public Domain publishes the list of newly free works every January. The European rule comes from the Term Directive (2006/116/EC), which harmonised the 70-year term across EU member states but let longer terms already running continue (art. 10). That is why Spain still protects authors who died before 7 December 1987 for 80 years: H. G. Wells, who died in 1946, is free in France and Germany but only becomes free in Spain on 1 January 2027.
What you are free to do
With a work that is in the public domain in your release countries, you can:
- adapt it into a film, a series, a short, a game or a comic;
- change anything: the era, the country, the genre, the ending, the gender of a character, the point of view;
- quote the text, use the dialogue and the character names;
- sell the result, monetise it, show it at festivals and license it to distributors;
- give the text to an AI tool to help you break it into scenes, characters and shots.
What you make is your own work. You cannot stop others from adapting the same book, but you can protect your script, your own new characters and your edit.
What stays protected
A famous story in the public domain is rarely alone. Six things around it often still belong to someone.
1. Translations and editions. A translation is a work in its own right, protected until 70 years after the translator's death in the EU. An introduction, notes or a newly established text are protected too. Work from the original language, from an old translation whose translator died long ago, or translate it yourself. This matters for every adaptation made outside the original language: Jules Verne's French text is free, many English translations are not.
2. What later adaptations added. A studio that adapts a free book owns what it created: its character designs, its new scenes, its music. The flat-headed Frankenstein monster with neck bolts comes from Universal's 1931 film, not from Mary Shelley. The ruby slippers come from the 1939 Wizard of Oz film; in L. Frank Baum's book the shoes are silver. In Warner Bros. v. X One X Productions (2011), a US federal appeals court held that elements first created for the 1939 film and Gone with the Wind were still protected, even where images of them came from publicity material in the public domain. The same logic protected the later Sherlock Holmes stories until they expired: in Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate (2014), the court held that the elements of the free stories were free, and only the later stories' additions were not.
3. Trademarks. Copyright expires; a trademark can last as long as it is used. In Dastar v. Twentieth Century Fox (2003), the US Supreme Court refused to let trademark law block the copying of a work in the public domain. But a name or a logo registered as a brand for specific goods (toys, clothing, a film series) can still be infringed by using it as a brand. The UK Intellectual Property Office notes that Disney holds trade marks for the Winnie-the-Pooh name and character drawings, which will likely outlive the copyright in the books. Before you put a famous character's name on merchandise or in a logo, search the registers (USPTO, EUIPO, UKIPO).
4. An actor's face and voice. Personality and publicity rights protect real people, sometimes after their death: California, for example, protects a deceased personality's name and likeness for 70 years after death (Civil Code § 3344.1). An AI-generated Dracula who looks like Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee is a risk even though the novel is free.
5. The author's moral right, in France and elsewhere. In France the moral right (respect for the author's name and for the integrity of the work) is perpetual (Code de la propriété intellectuelle, art. L121-1) and can be exercised by heirs. It does not forbid adaptations: in 2007 the Cour de cassation held that "la liberté de création s'oppose à ce que l'auteur de l'œuvre ou ses héritiers interdisent qu'une suite lui soit donnée", in the case of the sequels to Les Misérables (Cass. civ. 1re, 30 January 2007, no. 04-15.543). But do not attribute your own lines to the author, and do not present a distorted version as the original.
6. Music, recordings, photos and scans. Each layer has its own owner. A 19th-century score is free; a modern recording of it is not. A recent photo of a building or a painting may be protected. In the EU, faithful reproductions of a public domain visual artwork cannot carry a new copyright (Directive 2019/790, art. 14), but a site can still set terms on the use of its files: the BnF's Gallica allows non-commercial reuse with the source credited and charges for commercial reuse of its files. The text of a free book stays free whatever edition you take it from.
A last, rarer case: a work published for the first time long after the author's death (a lost manuscript, passages restored from a typescript) can give its first publisher a separate 25-year right in the EU (Directive 2006/116/EC, art. 4). Stick to the text as it was published in the author's lifetime.
The traps behind famous titles
| Title | Why it is a trap |
|---|---|
| Winnie-the-Pooh | Free in the US since 2022. In the UK and the EU, A. A. Milne's text only becomes free on 1 January 2027 and E. H. Shepard's drawings on 1 January 2047. Disney's version and its trademarks are separate |
| Peter Pan | Free in the EU and the US, but in the UK the law gives Great Ormond Street Hospital a perpetual royalty on performances and publications of the play and its adaptations (Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, s. 301 and Schedule 6) |
| Le Petit Prince | Published in 1943: protected in the US until the end of 2038. Free in most of the EU since 2015, but France adds 30 years for authors "morts pour la France" (CPI, art. L123-10), and Saint-Exupéry is one |
| The Wizard of Oz | Baum's 1900 book is free. The 1939 film's designs, songs and ruby slippers are not |
| Universal's monsters | Dracula and Frankenstein are free novels. The make-up, the costumes and the actors' likenesses of the Universal films belong to the films and their actors; the 1931 films can be protected in the US until 31 December 2026 at the latest, their sequels longer |
| Sherlock Holmes | Free in the US since 1 January 2023 and in the EU and the UK since 2001. Characters invented by recent series and novels, such as Enola Holmes, are not |
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Start FreeWhat changes when you use AI
The law of adaptation does not change with AI. Three practical things do.
Your prompts. Asking a model for "Dracula in the style of the 1931 film" or "the Phantom like in the musical" asks it to reproduce protected designs. Write your art direction from the book's own descriptions, and never name an actor.
What the model has seen. Image and video models have been trained on decades of film stills, so they drift toward the famous version even when you do not ask for it. Check every frame: if your creature grows neck bolts, regenerate it. In ScreenWeaver, each character, place and object is a story element with its own reference sheet, cited by every shot that shows it, which keeps your own design from drifting.
Who owns the result. In the US, the Copyright Office's 2025 report on copyrightability holds that purely AI-generated material is not protected, while your human contributions (the script, the selection and arrangement, your edits) can be. The details, by country, are in our guide to AI film copyright in 2026. Check also the labelling rules of the platforms where you publish, and the transparency duties for AI-generated content set by the EU AI Act (Article 50).
Where to get a clean text
| Source | What it offers | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Project Gutenberg | Tens of thousands of free ebooks | It checks US status only. If you republish a file, its licence asks you to remove the Project Gutenberg name and licence |
| Standard Ebooks | Proofread editions of free works | Its own work is dedicated to the public domain (CC0) |
| Wikisource | Transcriptions in many languages | Each edition names its source: check the translator |
| Gallica | Scans of historical French editions | Free for non-commercial reuse with the source credited; commercial reuse of the files is charged |
We link to these sources rather than hosting the files: they show the edition, its date and its translator, which is exactly what you need to check. Then turn the text into a project: the novel to storyboard page shows how a whole book becomes characters, places, scenes and shots, with Dracula as the worked example.
Checklist before you publish
- The work is free in every country where you release: US status (published before 1931) and EU and UK status (author died in 1955 or earlier, 1945 or earlier for Spain)
- Your text comes from the original or an old translation, not a recent edition, translation or annotated version
- Your character designs come from the book, not from a film, a musical or a series
- No actor's face or voice is imitated, and your prompts name no actor
- Music, recordings, photos and footage are your own, free, or licensed
- The famous name is not used as a brand or a logo without a trademark search
- Your credits do not suggest the author wrote your new scenes, or that a studio is involved
- For a commercial release, a lawyer has checked your chain of rights
Sources
- US: Circular 15A, Duration of Copyright, US Copyright Office; Public Domain Day 2026, Duke Center for the Study of the Public Domain; Copyright and Artificial Intelligence, US Copyright Office
- EU: Directive 2006/116/EC on the term of protection; Directive (EU) 2019/790, art. 14
- UK: Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, s. 12 and s. 301; A bear of very little copyright, UK Intellectual Property Office
- Spain: Real Decreto Legislativo 1/1996 (intellectual property law), transitional provision 4
- France: Code de la propriété intellectuelle, art. L121-1, L123-1 and L123-10; Cour de cassation, 1re chambre civile, 30 January 2007, no. 04-15.543
- Case law: Klinger v. Conan Doyle Estate, 755 F.3d 496 (7th Cir. 2014); Warner Bros. Entertainment v. X One X Productions, 644 F.3d 584 (8th Cir. 2011); Dastar Corp. v. Twentieth Century Fox Film Corp., 539 U.S. 23 (2003)
- Text sources: The Project Gutenberg License; BnF policy on image reuse (2019)
FAQ
Can I adapt a public domain book with AI and sell the film?
Yes. A work in the public domain can be adapted, changed and sold by anyone, with or without AI. Make sure it is free in every country where you release, and that you do not copy what later versions added.
Is a work in the public domain everywhere at the same time?
No. The US counts 95 years from publication for works published from 1929 to 1977; the EU and the UK count 70 years from the author's death. A work can be free in one and protected in the other for decades.
Can I use a translation I found online?
Only if the translation itself is free: its translator must have died more than 70 years ago in the EU, or it must be old enough in the US. Otherwise use the original language or translate it yourself.
Can I use a character's look from a famous film?
No, not the elements the film created, such as a make-up design, a costume or a prop that is not in the book. Build the character from the book's description.
Do trademarks stop me from adapting a public domain story?
They do not stop the adaptation itself. They can stop you from using a registered name or logo as a brand on goods. Search the trademark registers before you build merchandise or a series brand on a famous name.
Can I download the books from your site?
We link to legal sources such as Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks, Wikisource and Gallica, which show each edition's date and translator. Each work in the public domain story library lists them.
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